Sunday, June 5, 2011

The Good
An interesting little look at Portland wrestling in 1978 that is kind of just a hodgepodge of clips of matches, candid comments from fans and wrestlers and some actual promos as well. While there is not commentary on things, clearly this was edited to portray pro-wrestling in certain way. While the "fakeness" of the sport seems to be a focal point (and it would continue to be so for another twenty years), there is not really an effort to "expose" the business. The fans are clearly believers and while some look crazy for getting so angry at the heels, the ones they interview seem normal enough. The grandma who talks about making shortbread for Johnny Eagles is a classic stereotypical pro-wrestling fan, so are the toothless old man, insane lady in the front row (who cusses out one of the Von Steigers), the crazed nerdy guy and stern blue collar-looking guy. Pro-wrestling was a very different product then and its core fan base was very different as well. An interesting little glimpse into pro-wrestling of an era gone by.

The Bad
While this has some cool footage from an underexposed territory, this is nothing spectacular in the day of YouTube. I think the featuring of Dutch Savage and Bull Ramos is the most significant as those two have scarce footage floating around. This was very short, offered no real commentary and was kind of incomplete in terms of portraying the angles going on. Personally, I cannot validate watching much current "wrestling," when there is so much great stuff from yesteryear that is readily available and free on YouTube. This might not be the best example of an amazing gem, but it is certainly something that is neat to watch once and not have to go through some of the transactions that many went through in the tape trading era for something so mediocre.